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Until recently, it would have been a safe bet that no 23-year-old
in the world had ever turned up his nose at $3 billion. But
that's exactly what Evan Spiegel, the co-founder and chief
executive of messaging service Snapchat, did
when Facebook offered to buy his company.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with the offer, The Wall
Street Journal reports Facebook offered Snapchat an all-cash deal of $3 billion or more. At
the time of its last funding round, in June, Snapchat was
valued at only $800 million. (It raised $60 million in June of
a total $73 million to date.)

The deal would have marked Facebook's most expensive acquisition,
outstripping even its $1 billion purchase
of Instagram in 2012.

Snapchat has been enjoying explosive growth as the app of the
moment for teens, tweens and twentysomethings who act like teens.
In September, Spiegel announced that his service transmitted 350
million snaps a day, up 75 percent from the time of its $60
million Series B round. Snapchat allows users to send photo and
video messages to each other that disappear after several
seconds. The ephemeral nature of Snapchats make them a popular
medium for sexually suggestive photos, not to mention silly stuff
that you don't want preserved forever on a Facebook Timeline.

Still, given that Snapchat has yet to earn any revenue, the idea
of turning down a buy offer three times the value of that which
Mark Zuckerberg himself once turned down seems -- not to put too
fine a point on it -- insane. It appears Spiegel and his
co-founder, Bobby Murphy, also turned down a $200 million
investment offer from Chinese company Tencent Holdings that would
have valued Snapchat at $4 billion.

But Snapchat's young executives may soon have a better offer on
the table. According to The Wall Street Journal, they are hoping
their numbers continue to improve through early 2014, when they
may be finally willing to consider an acquisition or investment.
But they may be kicking themselves if their core user base
becomes enamored of another service and leaves Snapchat behind
before its founders can cash in.